Following Directions

Over the last few years, I have learned several things about my crafting "style" and accepted a few others. Once I started working within these personal parameters, my little world of crafting became slightly more organized and a lot more fun.

I do not follow directions well. Sometimes I think I'm smarter than the person who started the process, sometimes I'm just lazy, sometimes I think it looks pretty simple and "how hard can it be?", and sometimes I think I have done something similar and should be able to figure it out. More often than not, I'm wrong and I wind up at least referring to the directions at some point along the way.

When I accepted this basic and innate fact about myself, a few things made sense:

• I can bake, but I prefer to cook. Why? Baking is very precise and it is necessary to measure things whereas cooking, I can toss a little of this and a little of that and tweak and twist someone's idea to make it my own. This is largely what I do in my crafting projects as well, so it makes sense, right?
• My daughter wanted a dress, I had never made a dress because I did not think I would enjoy sewing clothes, but I'm always up to a good challenge, so I bought a pattern, sewed a dress, and guess what? I didn't enjoy it. I did it, it was cute, but there were way too many rules and directions and if I didn't follow them, it did not work right (yes...I tried to fidget with the pattern...).
• I do my very best work when a project can be completed in a single day. If absolutely necessary I can stretch it into a second day, but beyond that, forget it! Some of this is probably a mediocre attention span, but much of it has to do with "out of sight, out of mind". If I have to put everything away until the next time I am able to work on a project, when it's time to dig everything back out, I'll start on another project, leaving that project half done. In answer to the question you are asking yourself, yes, I do have a box of half completed projects.
• There are a lot of really cool things that can be done in a day!

• When I'm on a crafting roll of any type, it is easier for me to multi-task and make one big old mess that I have to clean up once.
• I have a workshop in the basement, but I feel awfully isolated when I work down there, so I tend to craft in the middle of everything - at the kitchen table. I am working on turning my unused dining room into a craft room, but I have to get it organized enough to make space for my super nifty sewing table my mommy indirectly bought for me last Christmas.
• I'm kind of a chaotic mess, but I have learned to be ok with that - it's who I am and how I work. The end results usually turn out pretty well, except when they fail miserably...and some of them do!

So...there you have it. Slowly but surely I am going to begin walking through many of my various crafting projects on this blog. I guess my reason for this particular post is to give you a heads-up about what you can expect from me. I will never post about my wonderful decorating ideas and I highly doubt I will have any great organizing tips that will change your life, but I love creating things, I take pride in what I make and, most importantly, I have a lot of fun doing it.